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What?! WHAT.

Dear Prudence, My sister won’t speak to me because I taught her daughter a naughty word. I was playing Scrabble with my 8-year-old niece, who is very smart. She always kills me when we play and it’s kind of embarrassing for me. But this one game was close. I had the opportunity to play all my letters to spell “fellatio” ensuring I’d win the game. I thought a bit about whether I should play this word or just lose graciously. Pride got the better of me and I played the word. My niece didn’t believe it was a word and looked it up in the dictionary. This lead to numerous questions about sex that I wasn’t prepared for. So I told her to ask her mother. When my sister found out what I’d done she hit the ceiling. She was furious at me that I’d taught her this word. Now she won’t speak with me. I’ve considered apologizing but I don’t think I did anything wrong. She would have learned the word eventually anyway. When I was a kid, I learned far worse words younger than that.

Re: What?! WHAT.

Depending on where the 8yo is that could be third grade... So, not too early for "the talk" but she also could have showed her the word is in fact a word and left it at that.. Something also tells me that the Mom wasn't prepared to have "the talk" at all for another 4-5 years LOL..

I have more of an issue with the OP having to 'beat' an 8 year old, upsetting her sister, being butthurt her sister won't talk to her, and then being all, "I'm not going to apologize because I don't feel I was wrong." She's a gigantic asshole.

Fellatio ... I think that goes a bit further than the standard birds & bees.

And I agree ... the aunt should have graciously let the kid win. If this was my kid, I'd be pretty pissed at the sister.

YES.

If your kid hears it and comes and asks you, that's one thing. But to throw it out there out of the blue? No. And simply to win a Scrabble game, because you are otherwise unable to beat an 8 y.o., ever? STFU.

Hell, I remember when I first met my niece (DH's brother's daughter). She was 7 at the time. She was over at our house and met my dogs. She innocently asked "how do you know if they are boy dogs or girl dogs?" I simply said, "That's a question that is better for you to ask your mom & dad." She just said okay and went on playing with the dogs. I'm sure she knows by now the ways of the world, but I didn't want to begin a discussion like that not knowing what her parents had or had not told her.

So I know this is a late post but I came across this and thought you all might enjoy, forgive me if its been mentioned before. There is a tumblr called "that bad advice" which is basically taking prudie questions and answering them as sarcastically as possible. I ran into their response for this one:

"Dear Greatest Scrabble Player of All Time, the Winningest Scrabble Person, Wow, You Are Great At Scrabble,

So much in life is about choosing difficult battles. Do we eat the second pinwheel sandwich at the work luncheon? Should we tell that guy who told the racist joke he should take a long walk off a short planet? And yet, you faced a demonstrably non-controversial face-off, and made the right decision but ultimately, found yourself punished for it.

Anyone would understand – the temptation of beating a child in a meaningless game in which the stakes could not possibly be lower obviously far outweighs the minimal danger of opening up the whole entirety of a can of worms that said child’s parents were completely unprepared to dish up in a palatable way.

I mean, blow jobs! We’ve all been there, right? Kiddo was gonna learn about ‘em eventually, which means you for sure were clear in introducing the concept of oral sex to a child without their parents’ consent. Does your sister realize that a single game of Scrabble against an elementary-schooler was at stake? It’s possible this child might grow up to believe their relative lost some word games on repeated occasions. If that doesn’t justify a random and unexpected foray into the details of sex play, the Bad Advisor doesn’t know what does."